


Off-Shift

by Kemmasandi



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, Other, Sticky Sex, Voyeurism, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-26 14:04:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemmasandi/pseuds/Kemmasandi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Megatron’s order, Soundwave kept meticulous records of Orion Pax’s tenure on the Nemesis. Captured by the Decepticons, Ratchet sees far more than he would have wanted, given the choice—which forces him to make some big decisions about his relationship with Optimus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Off-Shift  
>  **Rating:** NC17  
>  **Wordcount:** 6517  
>  **Universe:** TF:Prime  
>  **Characters/Pairings:** Megatron, Ratchet, Megatron/Optimus[Orion Pax], Ratchet/Optimus in later chapters  
>  **Warnings:** sticky smut, dubcon of various flavours
> 
>  **Notes:** This is a fill for the kinkmeme, written for a prompt I fell in love with at first sight. Originally posted on my dreamwidth, posting here now that it's so close to being finished. :D 
> 
> Dubcon in the sense that Orion doesn’t have all the information–has next to none, anyway–on what exactly he’s consenting to, having missed however many thousands of years of Megatron being a royal asshat, and therefore is not really capable of giving informed consent. Other than that it’s all fine and dandy and everyone is having fun, except for Ratchet. Other kinks present are use of berth toys, mention of size kink and restraint, and snarky medics. One snarky medic, anyway. 
> 
> Also, I hope the random switching between using ‘Optimus’ and ‘Orion’ isn’t too confusing. Ratchet’s having a hard time making that mental distinction when it’s what looks like Optimus there, although mentally regressed to Orion, and so is the writing.

The kick landed on an abused section of Ratchet’s upper dorsal plating, damage reports skittering in red across his HUD. Pain echoed dully through his neural net. 

He tensed, glaring up at the purple figure of the drone guard he’d been assigned for the cycle. Its faceless mask betrayed no emotion, but he could feel the waves of satisfaction pulsing through its erratic EM field.

Another kick. Ratchet refused outright to brace himself for it though he’d seen it coming a mile off—the Vehicon was a lighter model than he, and furthermore in his current state it was unlikely to help. Yesterday the outgoing guard had pinned him down while the replacement wrenched his shoulders out of alignment, then, cooing empty platitudes, manoeuvred them back into position with equal lack of care. His self-repair systems hadn’t caught up to the damage yet.

Luckily, it seemed this change of the guard had brought him one who would be satisfied with a few kicks for posterity’s sake. _Decepticon standards must be slipping_ , he thought sourly as the guard stepped away. The energy field keeping him contained in this one small cell crackled into life once more.

Exventing heavily, Ratchet ran his third diagnostic of the day. The damage it listed was extensive, but he’d survived worse. Wrenched and cracked shoulder joints, pinched energon lines in his wrists and ankle joints from days spent in cuffs, scuff-marks and dents everywhere—he could and had traced each one back to the guards which had created them. His weapons systems were offline, manually shut down in the immediate aftermath of his capture. Most of the error warnings were coming from crushed sensor nodes – painful, but eminently survivable. He’d already tried turning his tactile sensors down as far as they would go, but even with medical-grade code overrides in place the damaged sensors ached like the Pit. Being left to the Vehicons’ tender mercies was anything but. 

Carefully he drew his legs up to his chest, shoulders and dents protesting viciously as he levered himself into a kneeling position. From there, he glared at the blackened metallic walls, faceplates tight in a disapproving frown.

He’d been a guest on the Nemesis for going on three days now. Aside from the guards, he hadn’t seen a single Decepticon.

No visits from Megatron, gloating over his capture. None from Soundwave, attempting to hack past his firewalls and drag out all his considerable knowledge of the Autobot war effort on Earth. None from Starscream – although that at least he’d expected, given the Seeker’s current predicament. He hadn’t even seen Megatron’s current Second, Dreadwing, or that red and white knock-off the Decepticons called a medic. 

It was highly unusual for the Decepticons, whose usual interrogation techniques were fast, messy and brutal. To Ratchet’s cynical mind, it said that Megatron probably had something big planned—something Ratchet almost certainly wasn’t going to like.

He shuffled around on his knees, wincing as the energy binders which kept his ankles tight together wrenched his joints in ways they weren’t supposed to go. His guard watched impassively from the other side of the cell barrier, features blurred past the flickering purple containment field. The preceding guards had taunted Ratchet, pointing out how long he’d been a captive, all the myriad of ways his teammates were likely to get their slagging selves hurt rescuing him (trying to rescue him, the guards had said, but Ratchet knew better), all the various pleasures which awaited him once Megatron finally got off his spiky silver aft and started acting like the sadistic warlord he was. This one, however, seemed content to merely watch.

…Fine. If that was how it was going to be, Ratchet knew how to play that game too. It wasn’t as if this was his first sojourn in Decepticon captivity. He was practically a connoisseur these days.

Watching, however, proved harder than it ought to have been. Red warnings popped up on his display from time to time—low fuel tank levels (the Decepticons had better things to waste their energon on than the care and feeding of captives), his collection of damaged sensor nodes, the dings and scrapes all over his medic-sensitive servos, his shoulders slowly trying to knit themselves back into proper alignment, all the alerts he’d set to time his projects back in his lab at the base, three missed appointments for checkups with Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bulkhead again… 

He set a command to ignore all non-urgent pings, then sat and twitched. He was never going to complain about having too much to do ever again. For a couple of weeks, at least.

A joor, maybe even two, passed. The Vehicon did its best, but Ratchet had perfected the art of the meaningful stare through megavorns’ worth of looking after unruly patients. It shuffled a couple of times, then seemed to realise what it was doing, and stilled. Ratchet kept staring. You had to take what victories you could with the ‘Cons, no matter how petty.

Only a few klicks had passed, however, when it cocked its head towards thin air, taking on the stillness of a mech listening to an important transmission. It didn’t last long; the Vehicon chirped an acknowledgement over audible channels, then stalked off towards the hallway that led to the rest of the ship, out of Ratchet’s view.

 _Something interesting is going on out there._ Ratchet reset his optics, clearing his HUD. _Trouble, probably_. Voices murmured in the distance, rapidly growing in volume. He debated trying to stand up, then decided against it on the grounds that that would be too much like showing respect. Depending on the form those voices took, the best he could expect was being pushed over again just to see him wobble—which, funnily enough, didn’t appeal to him in the slightest. 

Steadfastly ignoring the pain it caused, he borrowed the most insolent of Wheeljack’s expressions and casually leant back against the wall, watching through narrowed optics as the Decepticon warlord strode into view.

The containment field flickered and cut out at a wave from Megatron’s cannon arm. The gigantic silver mech almost had to hunch over in order to step into Ratchet’s little cell. He grinned a sharklike grin, reaching down and offering a servo to the medic.

Ratchet glared up at Megatron, and made no move to take it. It was either that or gibber. 

Primus, he’d forgotten just how powerful Megatron’s field was; it battered and bore down on his own like a magnetic storm, forcing Ratchet’s own down in a parody of submission and keeping it there without tangible effort. Ratchet’s self-preservation protocols flickered; sensor ghosts pinged at the half-healed weld on his side, the tactile memory of those deadly servos ripping through his armor washing through his sensornet. The last couple of times he’d come face to face with Megatron, he’d been lucky to leave alive and with all his components attached. His spark lurched and rolled, the fear he’d been so good at keeping locked up threatening to break free.

“You’re late,” he said.

Megatron’s grin grew wider. The warlord appreciated verbal jousting—likely knew the headspace it was coming from. “Forgive me, medic. Perhaps we should have come to collect you earlier, but Soundwave and I have been busy preparing your party.”

Ratchet’ spark jerked uncomfortably. “I hope you know I’m terrible with parties,” he replied, eyeing the servo Megatron still offered. “I tend to hide in the corners all night.”

“That won’t be an option with this one,” Megatron said conversationally. Ratchet at last had to look away, giving in and accepting the offered support. Megatron effortlessly pulled him to his feet, a show of strength that really shouldn’t have surprised Ratchet, but still somehow did. Medics—true medics like Ratchet, at least—were a lot heavier than they looked.

He wobbled on his bound feet, reflexively holding onto Megatron's forearm for support. The warlord gave no indication that he’d noticed, but indignation and embarrassment flooded through Ratchet anyway, drawing his EM field tight against his frame.

The binders on his ankles popped open, kliks too late. “What are you playing at this time?” Ratchet snapped, forcing himself to meet Megatron’s optics. He had to look up a long way; the height difference between them was in the order of meters. “We both know I’m not going to break and hand you the information you want, so you may as well hack me and get it over with.” 

Red optics flickered in amusement. “Fortunately for you, we already have all the information we need.” Megatron gestured sharply at the Vehicon guard, who promptly and roughly cuffed the medic’s wrists together. “In fact, it is I who may have something you'll be interested in seeing, Autobot.”

Megatron had layered a strange harmonic on that last word. Ratchet stayed silent, processor working furiously. Megatron waited, just long enough that it became clear he wasn’t going to get an answer, then turned, beckoning Ratchet to follow. 

Ratchet remained where he was. Autobots did not follow the Decepticon symbol.

“You are a contrary one, aren’t you.” Megatron sounded almost happy. “Have the vorns been so unkind to you?” He beckoned a second time, and left; the Vehicon dragged Ratchet out after him.

They led him on a twisting trail through the Nemesis, taking odd turns and shortcuts through rooms not marked on the ship’s blueprints, which every Autobot these days had squirreled away in the back of his archives specifically for situations like this. On the positive side, they didn’t seem to be heading for either the medic’s wing or any of the known interrogation rooms. On the negative—Ratchet had no clue where in the Pit they were.

Megatron stopped before a nondescript metal door, much like all the other doors lining this particular corridor, and pinged the lock with an encrypted code. Ratchet didn’t bother to try hacking the signal—the complexity of the encryption had made his processor ache. He was a scientist, not a hacker.

…which was probably why Megatron had brought him here, of all places. The door had opened onto what Ratchet recognised must be one of the Nemesis’ communications control rooms. It was dark, but otherwise oddly domestic, more familiar to Ratchet that the three years at Outpost Omega One had made him. Soundwave stood underneath a bank of holoscreens at the far end of the narrow room, tapping industrially away at the control board. His cables were out, plugged into the interface network. Monitors lined the walls, cycling through hundreds of security feeds at once.

Megatron tugged Ratchet into the room, dismissing the Vehicon in the same movement. “Soundwave, our guest is here. Recording 1023X, as discussed.”

Soundwave remained silent, giving no outward acknowledgement of the order, but Ratchet felt a ping even more highly encrypted than the one Megatron had used to unlock the door go past, and the bank of holoscreens went dark. On the biggest, the image of a small database substation flashed into life.

Ratchet recognised the figure stooped over the control screen with a sinking feeling in his spark.

“Thank you, Soundwave,” Megatron said benevolently, a satisfied smile sliding over his pitted faceplates as he fixed his red glare on the figure of Optimus Prime. “That will be all.”

Soundwave nodded, disengaged his cables from the workstation, and—silently—left the room through a small side door. Bereft of his only distraction, Ratchet reluctantly looked back to the recording.

Megatron let the silence stretch for a few klicks, then broke it. “Did you ever wonder what became of Optimus Prime during his brief tenure as Orion Pax?”

“There wasn’t much to wonder about,” Ratchet grumbled, judging it safe enough to let his temper show through. Optimus’—Orion’s—appearance on the screen had thrown him more off-kilter than he was comfortable acknowledging. He remained standing, defiantly, in the middle of the room, shoulders squared even though they and his bound wrists protested with a vicious ache. “He was an Iaconian archivist. You had the Iacon Database needing decoded. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you put him to work doing.” 

Megatron simply nodded. “Even though you know what we were before the war?”

Said in such a conversational tone, it took Ratchet a klik to parse the underlying meaning of that sentence. He managed to keep his optics on the screen—but only just, and the rest of his attention was suddenly trained on Megatron like a sniper on a target. Not many mechs left alive had any clue of the tangled web of relationships underlying the interactions between Optimus and Megatron. Ratchet, who had been Optimus’ doctor—and friend—since long before the war had ever broken out, was one of maybe three who did.

They—Orion and Megatron—had been lovers. For how long, Ratchet was fairly sure only they knew. He’d only found out by accident, after the young archivist had been a little too enthusiastic with his much larger lover and ended up in Ratchet’s practice with an embarrassingly specific set of injuries. In the privacy of his own mind he’d gleefully compared their romance to the epics in the Cohort of Heroes, a secret love between the popular heroes of the day. He supposed the comparison still stood, although these days it was much closer to the tragic romances he’d found by accident, browsing the humans’ Internet. The magic had gone—or perhaps, it was never there. Real life had never measured up to the priests’ writings.

It was Ratchet who had been left to help Optimus Prime put together the pieces of his previous life. The pain wasn’t truly Optimus’, but the young Prime had had to bear it all the same.

A sudden hot rush of anger overtook the trepidation in his spark. Ratchet’s plating fluffed up, the movement dragging a sharp ache from his damaged sensornet. “I know what you’re implying, and it’s despicable.”

“Is it truly?” Megatron laughed, glancing at Ratchet. Red light reflected from the cheek flares of his gladiator-reinforced helm. “He came to me of his own accord. I merely gave him what he wanted.”

“My sentiment still stands,” Ratchet ground out. He paused for a moment, unsure which of the curses he wanted to fling at Megatron deserved to be spoken first—and was interrupted by a rumbled voice over the recording.

“Your shift has been over for half a joor, Orion.”

It was Megatron’s voice, unmistakeably so—but the last time Ratchet had heard it this plain and unburdened by ulterior motive, had been in Kaon, before the war. Back then, it had even been directed at the same mech.

Orion remained where he was, his back to the security camera, but Ratchet saw the way the tired stoop of his shoulders melted away. “My apologies, Lord Megatron. I wanted to finish this set before I retired for the day. Another few breems should do…” he trailed off as Megatron strode into the camera’s range, laying a reassuring—possessive, Ratchet’s behavioural algorithms read it as—servo on Orion’s shoulder.

“You won’t help us if you work yourself to deactivation.” Optimus looked up, startled at the contact. “Have some energon, get some recharge, then be at your very best for us tomorrow,” the warlord continued, gently turning Orion away from the workstation, fingers reaching out to trace clawtips down audials Ratchet knew were a lot more sensitive than most. On cue, Orion’s plating twitched; he tilted his helm further against Megatron’s palm, narrowed optics glowing bright. 

“I… may have a more pleasant idea.” Optimus caught hold of Megatron’s wrist, giving the warlord a gentle smile. “It has been a long time since we could enjoy each other’s company like this, hasn’t it?”

_For good reason!,/i > Ratchet mentally shouted. _Come on, Optimus, old friend, don’t let him do this to you!,/i > He wrenched his attention from the viewscreen, turning his most poisonous glare on the real-life warlord. Megatron had taken up a leisurely position, leaning against the wall with his claws tapping against his hips and his attention fixed squarely on the screen. He acknowledged Ratchet’s ire with a fleeting, dangerous grin.__

__“Far too long,” Megatron’s voice rumbled through the audio feed, dark and rich. Ratchet turned back to the screen, unwilling to watch _(like a train wreck in progress, thank you Miko)_ but unable to let it slide past. He couldn’t quite see the warlord’s face, hidden by the angle and the curve of his helm. Past his shoulder, Orion gave him a long look. On Optimus it would have been unreadable, but Orion’s optics were too expressive. He suddenly looked unsure, his earlier assured confidence leaking out like energon from a punctured main line._ _

__“Unless… I am overstepping my boundaries?”_ _

__“Boundaries are for lesser mechs, Orion.” Megatron laughed, and it sounded sinister to Ratchet, but Orion’s expression broke into a relieved smile. He rose up on his pedes, and Ratchet didn’t have to see it to know that he was kissing the warlord. Ratchet’s spark twisted uncomfortable, unable to separate the sight of Optimus from the reality of Orion and knowing that he slagging well should—_ _

__Orion broke the kiss quickly, and Ratchet had barely enough time to feel relieved before Orion was slipping down Megatron’s frame, tracing the curve of thick armor, kneeling awkwardly in front of him. Megatron shifted slightly, servos reaching out to caress Orion’s helm._ _

___No. Nonono Primus NO!_ Ratchet glared at the screen as if he could erase what was happening from history by sheer force of denial. _Don’t you dare, fraggitall! Please! Optimus sure as the Pit doesn’t deserve it…!__ _

__Primus, as always, wasn’t listening._ _

__Orion gave the tyrant a considering look, the slight smile lingering on his faceplates. “It is… reassuring that I can still give you this, no matter what else has changed.”_ _

__Ratchet’s spark lurched. The kiss might have been all Orion, and he would have been fine with that—as fine as it was possible to be with the whole clusterfrag, at any rate—but _that_ , said with Optimus’ voice and Optimus’ tones, that was _Optimus_. The boundaries between them were blurring in Ratchet’s mind, and reactions he should have been able to hold back were building up behind mental barriers he’d put in place vorns ago._ _

__On the heels of that thought, it occurred to Ratchet that the video feed was suspiciously high-quality for a coincidental recording. The camera angle just gave him an unobstructed view of Optimus’— _Orion’s_ , Ratchet insisted in a last-ditch attempt to abate the illogical sense of betrayal growing in his lower processors—face past the gunmetal curve of Megatron’s hip fairing. _ _

__Both Megatrons shifted – the one onscreen cupping Orion’s face in a gentle clawtipped hand, while the real Megatron turned to Ratchet, scarred faceplates twisting in a cruel mockery of Orion’s gentle smile. There was a knowing look in his optics, something in the way he held his helm tilted towards the screen…_ _

__“You planned this.” Ratchet’s voice dropped into a growl, expression hardening. “You set this up from the moment Orion arrived on the Nemesis. You put on this—this absolute _farce_ —just so you could—” His voice trailed off in a staticky burst of wordless, righteous rage, fingertips digging into his palms as his bound servos clenched._ _

__He wasn’t sure what was worse: that Megatron had gotten to Orion in the first place, that he’d recorded the slagging mess, that Optimus—Orion!—had been the one to instigate it (and that was a sucker-punch in the fuel tank, wasn’t it, Ratchet?) or that, suddenly, Ratchet’s own overactive subprocessors were supplying him with possibilities, images of Ratchet himself in Megatron’s place…_ _

___That has nothing to do with anything,_ Ratchet insisted, and ruthlessly disabled the offending subprocessors. It wasn’t as if he needed them in this situation._ _

__“Can you fault me, medic?” Megatron’s field flared with lust as, onscreen, Orion’s helm moved forward, mouth parting and glossa flaring out to taste Megatron’s panel. The expression on Optimus’ face—dimmed optics, plates slack in open desire—was a perfect visual match. “One should make the most of what we have, when and where we have it. And besides–” he cocked his helm thoughtfully, turning his gaze toward Ratchet – “Orion—Optimus, my apologies—is at his best in pleasure, don’t you agree? So generous, so intent on _sharing_ it.”_ _

__Ratchet’s subprocessors had the last laugh. His cooling fans mortifyingly chose that moment to gamely stutter into life, managing a choked whirr before a combined force of denial and horror shut them down decisively._ _

__“I thought so,” Megatron said, grinning._ _

__In the privacy of his own mind, Ratchet imagined the comforting weight of a wrench in his servos and chucked it at the smirking glitch as hard as he could. He almost wished Soundwave was still around to pick the thought out of his processor. “So you knew he was always going to choose the Autobots over you,” he shot back, mostly to distract himself. He could feel the heat he’d done such a good job of not noticing (if there was ever proof that he thought too much, this was it) crawling around in his circuits, making him shift restlessly. -It wasn’t the best comeback he’d ever thought of, but Megatron didn’t answer._ _

__Then the Megatron onscreen’s interface panel shifted, and the warlord’s spike – silver, ridged with heavy sensory channels, thick enough that it would burn in just the right way to take it – extended into a waiting black servo. Orion pressed his mouth to the tip in a slow kiss, wrapping his fingers around its girth and stroking up the length of the spike._ _

__“Do it,” Megatron rumbled, and Optimus smiled and opened his mouth._ _

__Ratchet suddenly wondered what it would feel like if that were his own spike disappearing into his Prime’s mouth. Then hated himself for even thinking of it._ _

__The camera angle was far too perfect. Ratchet knew he should look away, but there was something hypnotising about the way Optimus worked Megatron’s spike, swirling his glossa around the girth of it, optics narrowed in intense concentration. He dropped his head and licked it from base to tip, denta grazing heavily across the sensory channels, then took it into his mouth again and swallowed. Megatron’s helm tilted back, the warlord letting out an almost Infrasonic rumble. Silver hips jerked, pressing into Optimus’ mouth—and rather than protest, Optimus simply took him deeper, black hands coming to rest on Megatron’s sides._ _

___Primus, you are cruel,_ Ratchet thought, watching Optimus steadily tease Megatron up to the point of overload. This wasn’t just about the fragging—it never had been. Optimus and Megatron together—their opposing natures matched, completing each other. Together, they created a sort of black hole in society, dragging in everyone and everything and somehow building it up into their own reality. Megatron took, and Optimus gave. Optimus would give away his entire self—hypothesis proven by recent events—if someone didn’t hold him back to reason. _ _

__Somehow, over the years, that person had more and more often been Ratchet. Yet the one time Optimus had needed him most, he hadn’t been there._ _

__Megatron stiffened, helm falling back and servos clamping down on Optimus’ helm, hips twitching arrhythmically as he emptied himself into Optimus’ mouth. Ratchet watched, spark leaden with hate and despair. If it had been _anyone,_ anyone but him… but then, he realised dejectedly, he wouldn’t trust this with anyone but himself either. _ _

__Optimus drew back from Megatron’s interface array, distractedly licking silvery transfluid from his lips. “You needed that, I think,” he said, tracing his fingers down the length of the still-pressurized spike, a thoughtful gleam in his optics._ _

__“I wouldn’t disagree with that,” Megatron replied, vocaliser scratchy with static. His servos clamped down on Orion’s shoulders, hauling the smaller mech to his pedes. “What about yourself, old friend? What do you need? Anything you ask for will be yours; you need only say the words.”_ _

__Orion frowned slightly, blue optics drifting down Megatron’s heavy frame. “I… don’t truly need anything at this point, Megatron. You have been more than hospitable. Unless…” he trailed off again, staring at something on Megatron’s chestplates. “Would you stay with me? You’re the one familiar presence I have.”_ _

__Ratchet missed most of Megatron’s reply—the recording cut out halfway through the second word. When the image settled, the heat circling through his systems spiked, his optics going wide._ _

__Where the last camera had been placed somewhere near the roof, looking down on the room, this one would have been somewhere just above hip-level on Optimus. And it was Optimus that filled most of the screen, seen from side-on, bracing himself weakly against a buttress which protruded from the wall on his far side. The unmistakable roar of cooling fans hummed through the audio feed, electricity licking visibly over Optimus’ plating as his vents frantically tried to cycle cool air through his overheated frame. His backstruts arched, nearly throwing him off-balance; one servo clawed at the buttress for support. Fluids dribbled down his smooth chrome thighs, lubricant seeping out from underneath closed valve panels._ _

__Ratchet threw his own vents wide open, clawing his field in tight around his frame. Megatron hadn’t bothered to accord him the same courtesy, and the warlord’s EM field thrashed in the narrow space, coloured in sudden, intense arousal. Narrowed red optics slid over to Ratchet, curving in a feral smirk as they took in his taut, uncomfortable stance._ _

__“It’s fascinating,” Megatron announced suddenly, voice a low, rich growl. “We are much closer in size to what we once were, as I’m sure you remember. Yet he still seems to enjoy being prepared to take me, though he no longer needs it.”_ _

__Ratchet’s attention slid back to the lubricants staining Optimus’ thighs as though magnetized._ _

__Onscreen, Optimus’ servos twitched spasmodically, reaching for his interface array. “Hands off,” Megatron’s voice ordered from somewhere very close to the camera, loud enough to make Ratchet startle and shift backwards. Orion merely cracked open an optic, glowing almost white with frustrated energy._ _

__“I realise this was my idea,” he managed, words thick with static, “but you’re still a slagging tease.”_ _

__“Am I now.” Megatron’s voice seemed to curl in from all sides, supremely amused. “Though I have to admit, you still impress me. Three of this planet’s cycles with that inside you, and you’re only now giving into it. Even Soundwave didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary in your actions.”_ _

__“Unless he’s suffered an incredible change in personality over the past however many vorns, I doubt he would care if he had.” Optimus threw back his helm and moaned, squirming his thighs together in a futile effort to bleed off the charge._ _

___That… oh great, toys now?_ Ratchet really didn’t want to be privy to all the sticky little kinks in their relationship—and he refused to have the decency to admit to himself that that wasn’t quite true, where it came to Optimus at least. Still, it was… fascinating, to a little oft-forgotten part buried deep down in his processor, to watch Optimus come unravelled at the seams with seemingly no outside stimulation._ _

__His cooling fans tried to kick on again. This time, they succeeded. Ratchet had to scramble to find the code to shut them down, eminently conscious of the dark amusement that washed through Megatron’s field when he did so._ _

__The embarrassment kept the arousal away for a while (Ratchet thanked Primus he didn’t have that particular kink), but like an old bad credit, it came creeping back._ _

__Optimus was shuddering by now, the excess charge rapidly overwhelming his systems. Ratchet pushed down the train of thought which had been steadily meebling _wantWANTsexysquirmingPrimeWANT,_ and called on his diagnostic protocols, which tended to have an inhibiting effect on his libido even under the best of circumstances. _Charge damper,_ he guessed, watching his Prime arch and let loose a moan of desperate need._ _

__There was any number of toys which could have had such an effect on him. Once upon a time, he’d had a friend who designed and made custom berth toys. Medics apparently made the best consultants in that business; engineers tended to get, hrmm, distracted by the basic idea. But you didn’t survive long as a medic by pussyfooting around the sticky stuff. Additionally you theoretically knew all there was to know about the base components, so to speak, of interfacing…_ _

___Charge damper, definitely._ As applied to Ratchet, there was no ‘theoretically’ about it. _Tricky little mechanisms—I haven’t seen one since before Praxus fell._ _ _

__They worked by simultaneously stimulating the interface nodes in the valve and absorbing just enough of the charge this produced to prevent them from triggering an overload. A mech walking around with a damper in his valve could spend entire cycles in a constant state of hazy arousal before the charge level ramped up enough to trigger an overload over the top of the damper. Some of the more hardcore versions had a trigger which released the collected charge into the mech’s systems at overload, prolonging the climax to near-dangerous levels._ _

__…Come to think of it, he hadn’t done much more than a cursory routine check of Optimus’ interface array after Jack had retrieved his memories from Vector Sigma, trusting Optimus to notify him if anything was out of order. He’d more been worrying about viruses, and getting the rest of the team back up to full functioning after the trashing they’d received while trying to guard the space bridge gate from Megatron._ _

__The diagnostic protocols faded at about the same time as Optimus fell headlong into a truly spectacular overload. Ratchet’s own valve clenched in sympathy, his vents trying frantically to dump excess heat without the assistance of his cooling fans, which seemed to have finally gotten the message and stayed shut down._ _

__Onscreen, Optimus first went stiff in the most wonderfully misguided attempt at self-control Ratchet had seen in a long time, then threw himself back against the wall hard enough to leave paint-scraped dents in the dead metal, circuits sparking and electricity leaping from his plating. A binary keen tore from his vocalizer, servos clenching hard against the buttress as he lost the battle to keep himself upright. He slowly sank to the floor, legs spreading as his interface panel finally snapped open. A gush of faintly pink valve lubricant dripped down his thighs as he hit the floor, pooling around his aft._ _

__Ratchet thanked Primus that EM fields didn’t show up on recordings, because there was no way he could have kept his own automatic reactions under control with that buffeting around his own field. The raw desire suffusing Megatron’s savage field was bad enough, and he wasn’t even attracted to the Decepticon warlord in the slightest._ _

__…Not that he was attracted to Optimus, ahem. That would open up a whole new can of tiny organic invertebrates._ _

__He would have looked away from the screen, except after a beat or two of fevered shivering Optimus cracked open his optics, blazing near-white with afterglow, and reached out towards someone off the edge of the screen. There was the click of a vocalizer resetting, and then he spoke._ _

__“Now?”_ _

__“Now,” Megatron’s voice agreed. The warlord’s huge frame stepped into view, gently nudging Orion’s legs further apart and settling on his knees between them. Orion’s helm thunked back against the wall, smiling up at Megatron. He seemed too drained to react, other than that._ _

__“Exquisite,” Megatron murmured, sliding his servos under Optimus’ thighs and pushing them up and apart, spreading him wide open. “This is where you belong—here with me, _under_ me.”_ _

___No,_ Ratchet thought, shaking his head in silent denial even as Orion made a soft sound of assent. _No more. I won’t let you.__ _

__He watched in an unwilling sort of fascination as Megatron circled the rim of Optimus’ valve with the back of a silver claw, smearing his lubricant over the exterior sensor nodes and prompting a shaky moan from the slighter mech. Then, pinning Optimus’ hips in place, slid two fingers inside—and despite himself Ratchet was impressed at the precision it must have taken to do so with fingers tipped in warframe claws._ _

__Orion had fallen quiet but for his overworked vents, his black hands dancing over the cables in Megatron’s neck. He gasped once, a static sigh as Megatron pressed another finger inside him, optics narrowing as he tried to concentrate on one of the very few places on Megatron’s heavily-armored frame where he could reach exposed circuitry._ _

__“If it weren’t so— _ahh_ —effective at keeping you alive, I’d complain about all this extra plating,” he gasped, clutching tight at the curved flanges on Megatron’s shoulders as the warlord flexed fingers inside him._ _

__“If you can still string together such an intelligible sentence, I must not be doing a very good job,” Megatron growled. He twisted his hand again and pulled out, the damper held carefully between claws dripping with lubricant. He set the damper down on the floor, and it was immediately forgotten as he raised his slicked fingers and pressed them against Optimus’ mouth. “Clean these for me, and I will go about remedying that.”_ _

__Orion obediently opened his mouth, glossa flicking out as Megatron’s fingers slipped in. With his free hand the warlord lifted Optimus into his lap, angling his hips so that when his spike extended, the tip just nudged Optimus’ slick entrance._ _

__“Now,” Orion said, and it sounded like a prayer as his hips jerked against Megatron’s spike, “now, please!”_ _

__Megatron’s voice was dark and feral. “As you wish.”_ _

__He surged forward, burying himself to the hilt in Optimus in one rough thrust._ _

__Ratchet could have offlined his optics and lost himself in the noises pulsing through the audio feed. Megatron was silent and could have been easily ignored, whereas Optimus let his pleasure flow through his vocalizer, choked gasps and deep groans fading to a sobbing keen of ecstasy as he tripped headlong into overload. But that wouldn’t have been fair to Ratchet—and it would never have been right by Optimus, who was worth so much more than a cheap voyeuristic thrill in the heart of the Decepticons' flagship. Ratchet kept his optics on and his attention focused on the grey frame between Optimus’ legs, weight forcing Ratchet’s Prime down into the space between wall and buttress. _Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, even if you wanted to. Nowhere to go but to me.__ _

__When the recording cut out, Ratchet knew better than to hope it was the end. There were five more video segments, and he watched Optimus being fragged insensate from five different angles, five divergent ways. Megatron took him from behind, from above, always trapping Optimus between himself and solid metal as if he might come to his senses and escape at any moment. Yet Optimus seemed to welcome it: the time he came hardest was the time Megatron bound him to the workdesk in his own little archival room, completely unable to move._ _

__It took Ratchet a klik or two to realise when the recording next went dark, it stayed dark. He blinked, experimentally shifting his weight from pede to pede. His vents were cranked to their widest aperture, dry heat gusting from a frame crawling with subtle energy. His EM field was still tucked in tight; he let it flare experimentally and quickly tucked it in again, wincing at the clashing taste of rage/arousal/envy. Red pressure-gauge warnings flickered under the overheat notifications on his HUD—he hurriedly relaxed his fists, stretching cramps from his palm cables._ _

__Movement caught his attention from the shadows on the wall. Fury quickly overtook the aching need in his spark as Megatron stretched, smiling at him._ _

__“How did you find that, medic? Enlightening, I hope.”_ _

__“You could say that,” Ratchet managed, grimacing as his vocaliser skipped a beat mid-sentence. He reset it with a muted click, and added, “Although I’m not sure the message I got was the one you intended to give.”_ _

__“Oh?” Megatron’s optics flashed predatorily. “And what was that message?”_ _

__“Your Decepticons must be rank amateurs in the berth if you need an Autobot to get you off so badly.”_ _

__Megatron blinked. Ratchet glared back, totally unrepentant. Usually he considered insulting an enemy’s prowess in the berth to be the lowest form of verbal warfare—there was no finesse to it, for Primus’ sake, any old glitch could do it. In this case, though— _completely justified_. _ _

__Unexpectedly, the warlord began to chuckle. Dangerously, but a laugh was a laugh, and this one sounded like it had real mirth behind it. “I am a little short for choice, after all,” he agreed. “Soundwave is eager to please, but has no desire. Dreadwing simply does not appeal to me. Starscream… would have been an option once, but even then I wasn’t that desperate.” He pinged the door, waving Ratchet through ahead of him with false courtesy. “Tell me, why should I settle for any of them when there is still Optimus?”_ _

__“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the concept, ‘he’s out of your league’?” Ratchet walked tall and proud, refusing to acknowledge the cuffs still binding his wrists, the ache in his shoulders and the heat curling lazily through his circuits. “Autobot. Decepticon. You’ve chosen paths far too divergent.” He meant it, too—there had been times when he’d wondered what could have happened had the war never begun, had Megatron accepted Optimus’ nomination as Prime. The conclusions he’d come up with had always been far too good to be true._ _

__But Megatron was shaking his head, as if at a sparkling who had gotten into the energon goodie jar. “It does not matter what he chooses, what he is—Optimus will always belong to me.”_ _

__“No.” The word slipped out before Ratchet could stop it – not that he would have._ _

__“No?” Megatron’s optic ridges rose. “Are you disagreeing with me, medic?”_ _

___To borrow another of Miko’s favourites – duh._ “If Optimus belongs to anyone, he belongs to us. The Autobots,” Ratchet said, watching the warlord’s frame for any sign of a fraying temper. Baiting Megatron probably wasn’t the greatest idea at this stage, but honestly, Ratchet was too far gone to care. “He chose the Autobots of his own free will, knowing what we stood for and how we went about enabling it. Twice! Despite the fact that he—mostly—agreed with you, despite the fact that he loved you and honestly wanted to be yours. So yes, I’d say I’m disagreeing with you.”_ _

__“Really now,” Megatron rumbled – and there; his forearm plating shifted, flaring out over his protoform. Ratchet had treated gladiators, once upon a time: the action was indicative of barely constrained anger. “I’m disappointed. I had expected Optimus’ pet medic to be a little smarter.”_ _

__“Hah!” Ratchet couldn’t resist the scoff; it’d been itching to get out the whole time he’d been on the Nemesis. What use was being captured if you couldn’t laugh in your enemy’s face? “Smart is enough for glitches like Starscream. I’m intelligent – and there is a difference, Megatron, believe you me.”_ _

__There was a pause. Unexpectedly, the warlord smiled, his plating slowly settling. “I see. Perhaps you, then, will need another demonstration.”_ _

__“I’ve seen enough of those videos to last a lifetime!”_ _

__Megatron stepped close, leaning down to Ratchet’s level. “I don’t intend to share the others. They would be wasted on such a small audience.” He chuckled, and it was Ratchet’s turn to stiffen, plating fluffing out and field contracting automatically. “In any case,” he continued languidly, “I believe a live show would be more effective.”_ _

__That one little threat chilled Ratchet more effectively than a bath of ice. His glitching subprocessor supplied him with the probability of Optimus trapped under that heavy grey frame again, this time unwillingly. “You do, and you will be torn apart by every Autobot in the system,” he said, keeping his voice under control with iron-clad force of will. Megatron merely laughed._ _

__“There are six of you,” he pointed out. “I give you full permission to _try._ ”_ _


	2. Chapter 2

Ratchet onlined the next morning with the worst temper he’d entertained in a long while. 

He’d had a fitful and broken recharge, plagued with memory files of Megatron and Optimus as they were and as they had been. It was disturbing how well the images matched up—hindsight was perfect, and all that. His shoulders had ached all night, as had his damper circuits as they tried to get rid of the arousal-charge, the unavoidable physical reactions from Megatron’s little show-and-tell the previous day. Neither had the Vehicon’s guard-changing ritual of kick-the-Autobot-while-he’s-down relented; while he couldn’t actually see them, he could slagging well feel a new group of messy tears right through the plating on the backs of his thighs. They were the source of the great majority of the warnings now crowding his HUD, circuitry breaks and energon leaks tagged to the main armor breach report. 

Ratchet added them, and the consistent overcharge pings which kept trying to reroute themselves to his primary interface array, to his mental log of Things That Frag Me Off About Today. There was quite the list, starting from _I’m a captive of the Decepticons_ and tracking all the way down to _there is a misfiring sensor somewhere in my left pede, and it itches, Primus damnit!_ He let his engine rev in a display of helpless temper, scowling as the vibrations set his already sensitised circuits alight. 

There was fear there underneath it, he was honest enough to admit to himself. It was just that there was also rage, and that was closer, easier to hand. 

Muttered curses running through his vocaliser, he drew the rage around himself like a blanket, letting it burn through his EM field and wash over the top of the pain and helplessness, his own personal shield. Onlining his sensory channels came second, the order natural as the centuries to Ratchet. He shuttered his optics on and off a few times, cycling through audial and radio frequencies and running a low-level scan of his surroundings in the same moment.

It stood as a testament to his distracted state that that it took him a few kliks to realise the head sticking out of the wall wasn’t some ghoulish prank being played on him by his captors, but rather Smokescreen, grinning lopsidedly at him.

Ratchet’s vocaliser clicked off mid-profanity.

“Nasty field you got there, Ratchet,” the former Elite Guard said conversationally, his shoulders and upper chassis, glowing faintly, becoming visible as he leant further out of the wall. Ratchet’s few tactical programs took over and his helm immediately swung round, optics widening in surprise as they took in the motionless figure of his guard, slumped down against the rear wall of the observation block. “Sorry if I woke you up when I knocked him out, but we’ve gotta blow this joint ASAP.”

Ratchet turned back to Smokescreen and gave him one last incredulous look. There was gunfire in the distance, he realised, steady shrieks of laser fire muted through several intervening walls—or floors, he realised, lifting his optics to the ceiling. The cavalry had arrived.

“You’ve been taking lessons in elocution from Miko, haven’t you,” he said dryly, attempting to scrabble upright without the use of his hands, which Megatron hadn’t bothered to have unbound when he’d dropped Ratchet back in his cell the previous night. Smokescreen immediately stepped out of the wall to help, although he gave Ratchet a funny look when their fields met, the familiar safety of a comrade making Ratchet’s anger-fueled grip on his own field slip. Ratchet hoped to Primus it was just the conflict in his processors which had shown through, rather than the aftereffects of a charge not properly blown away.

“Maybe,” Smokescreen just laughed in the end, inspecting the locking mechanism on Ratchet’s cuffs. “I guess it’s too much to ask for that our ‘Con friend over there will have the key for these?”

“Very likely,” Ratchet grumbled, turning a nervous glare to the door as a faint explosion sent vibrations running through the floor. “Megatron had them last night, and I doubt he saw fit to give them back.”

Smokescreen clicked in irritation. “I won’t ask what that crazy slagger wanted with them. Guess we’ll just have to hack them back at base. Arcee’s on my case to hurry the slag up. I’ll point you in the right direction, so all you’ve got to do run like a horde of scraplets was on your heels. Think you can do that?”

“Of course. This is all essentially cosmetic damage,” Ratchet huffed, electing not to mention the dangerously low fuel tank advisories glowing in the corner of his HUD. In his highly professional opinion, it wasn’t likely to become a problem unless someone got in a lucky strike on his main lines en route to the rendezvous point. Which was a higher likelihood than usual, he admitted—but if he said anything, Smokescreen would insist on doing a transfusion. It was standard procedure, and no-one knew that better than Ratchet, but they didn’t have time for that slag right now.

“Alright then,” Smokescreen shrugged, a gesture he’d been quick in picking up from the children. He grabbed Ratchet by the pauldron and headed off into the rear wall of the cell. Ratchet had barely enough time for trepidation before he was _in_ the wall, sensors blind and deaf, metal surrounding him, inside him, occupying the same space as him—too close to even feel. There was a beat in time, a step—and then they were out again. 

Miko had talked about drowning once, a sensation the Autobots were completely unfamiliar with as they did not require air nor atmosphere to function. 

Now though, Ratchet thought he knew what she meant.

A few steps across an empty cell, and into the next wall. Smokescreen paused—consulting his copy of the ship’s blueprints, Ratchet guessed—then turned sixty degrees left, leading Ratchet further into the blind darkness. Why were the walls so thick? He could feel bunches of wires, energon conduits passing through him. The energon conduits felt strange, the processed stuff fizzing through his own lines trying to react with it even though they occupied two different planes.

Smokescreen’s navigation brought them out in a lift shaft, both mechs balancing on a narrow ledge beside a closed door. A level or two below, the roof of the lift rose steadily towards them.

“Jump when I tell you,” Smokescreen said, watching the lift rise. “We’ve got two floors to go. Bulkhead’s at base, watching the kids and the ground bridge, but everyone else is here providing a distraction. We gotta meet up with them, and we’ll be back at base as soon as the ground bridge opens. Sounds good, yeah?”

“Let’s get there first,” Ratchet grumbled. Smokescreen’s field flickered in a silent laugh, shot through with tendrils of eager amusement.

“Alright. Here we go—jump!” 

They didn’t really need to jump; the lift had risen almost level with their perch. Ratchet decided he’d let his rescuer have his fun, but at his age, he wasn’t about to make a leaping fool of himself. The lift mechanisms groaned alarmingly as it took their combined weight along with whoever was riding inside it. Smokescreen kept a tight hold on Ratchet, carefully inching them across the roof towards the opposite wall. “Nearly there… almost… come on Ratchet, keep up!”

Ratchet let his field buzz with very real irritation. “Remind me to schedule you a full maintenance check when we get back, because I’m sure your proprioceptive centers must be glitching. I _am_ keeping up!” 

Smokescreen pulled another face, this one thoroughly un-Cybertronian, no doubt gleaned from Miko’s extensive repertoire. “There goes the Doctor of Doom we all know and love. Come on then, let’s go.”

A tug at Ratchet’s shoulder, and the phase shifter’s faint blue glow flickered into life again. Smokescreen tugged them into the shaft wall, metal drowning them both before it spat them into a deserted control room. Smokescreen kept going. Ratchet had no choice but to bumble along at his heels, refusing to wince even though each step jarred the cracked sockets in his shoulders further.

Then they were through the open door, straight into the thick of the battle. Ratchet abortively ducked back towards the shelter of the doorway as laser fire zinged past within micrometers of his plating—in some cases passing right _through_ his plating. Shouts echoed from both ends of the hallways, a mass of Vehicons spilling around the bend ahead of Ratchet.

He caught sight of movement behind him, past Smokescreen’s doorwings—Optimus, ion cannon firing, racing down the hallways. Ratchet’s spark did a convoluted bellyflop, deep relief the obvious and first reaction. There was nothing quite like seeing one’s leader and figurehead, whole and unharmed, leading the charge for one’s rescue. At that moment, solid steel and living power coalesced into his being, nothing like the young thing who had writhed and gasped in Megatron’s videos.

Ratchet clenched his jaw, transformation cog trying in vain to bring out the blades from his forearms. Here and now, he was useless. It should have been frightening, but again the rage was closer.

Optimus’ cover fire blasted past them, sending the leading Vehicons scrabbling back behind cover. Suddenly he was behind Ratchet, his free arm tucking Ratchet back against his own body as Smokescreen turned twin high-powered blasters on the Vehicons, switching from stealthy saboteur to warrior with enviable speed. Arcee appeared out of nowhere, Bumblebee close at her heels.

“Bulkhead—ground bridge!” Ratchet heard Optimus order over the gunfire, the command soaring over the noise of gunfire with ease. As a group, they retreated along the corridor. 

The boiling green vortex of a ground bridge spun up out of thin air within seconds—Ratchet barely had time for his external sensors to register the spatial disturbance before Optimus pushed him bodily into it. Bumblebee and Smokescreen caught him by the shoulders, keeping him on his pedes through the unsteady tunnel. He felt Arcee and then Optimus follow, the battle-noise cutting off as the Nemesis end of the bridge closed up. They all stumbled out of the home gate together, Ratchet at the centre of the little group of Autobots, Optimus a comforting presence at his back.

There was a welcoming committee: Bulkhead, standing by the space bridge controls, his EM field reaching out for Ratchet’s, flushed with relief. Miko and Raf, practically bouncing up and down at the foot of the flight of stairs that led up to the kids’ TV area. Jack and June, waiting in the med-bay, wearing identical quiet smiles.

The tension evaporated from Ratchet’s frame. It’d no doubt return at the most inopportune time, but for now, that didn’t matter. He was back— _home_.

***

Arcee picked the lock on the cuffs binding Ratchet’s hands. Ratchet wasn’t sure he wanted to know where she’d come by that talent, given that her job description as an advance scout and skirmisher didn’t generally entail much escapology. 

After that, he’d barely stopped to check himself over, popping out one dent which had been crimping a small but important fuel line in his chassis, then getting to work on repairing a blown capacitor cell in Bumblebee’s main rifle. His shoulders ached, but his self-repair systems were working on that, and short of making sure he was fuelled properly, there wasn’t anything he could do to help it along. Bumblebee’s capacitor was the more urgent job, considering the scout’s place in their tiny team of fighters. Ratchet, who generally stayed at base all day anyway, could wait.

And wait he did, until late in the morning the following day, when all his catch-up work was finally done. He’d spent a couple of hours pulling out all the dents he could reach, taking small delight in seeing the sensor-node warnings disappear one by one from his HUD. Bulkhead had helped him with a couple of the big ones on his back, no doubt feeling guilty about not having been part of the rescue party. For once, Ratchet had accepted his help without a protest—he could sympathise with that feeling.

By the time the ex-Wrecker had left, he was down to the rips on his thigh. Due to their awkward placement, that wasn’t something he could do on his own.

“I will assist,” Optimus offered, having emerged from the Ops entryway and stood, staring with an almost bemused expression on his smooth faceplates, for a minute while Ratchet tried to examine the extent of the damage with the specialised tactile sensors in his fingertips. 

Technically anyone could do welding; it was one of the simplest parts of Cybertronian repair. Pits, Ratchet could and had trusted Bulkhead with weld jobs (admittedly when there was no other option, but still!) All it really required was a steady hand, preferably still mostly attached to its owner’s body. 

Optimus fit the requirements better than the others by simple dint of being present. Smokescreen was running perimeter patrol, while Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead were off collecting their humans from the school in town. Ratchet had considered putting it off until one of them had returned, but that would have raised awkward lines of enquiry—and he had no doubt that it would have; Optimus still had a librarian’s talent for asking the real pertinent questions. _(Have you returned your issues yet? Why are you still working when your downshift started two hours ago? Why are you trying to avoid me?)_

He clambered awkwardly up onto the med-berth, trying to ignore the way Optimus’ EM field pulsed warm and reassuring around him. Like Megatron, Orion Pax had always had a strong field. When he’d ascended to Primacy, it had only become stronger—so strong, in fact, that he had trouble restraining it the way normal mechs did. He’d learned to train it instead, keeping it from displaying the minute changes in mood and energy levels which coloured everyone else’s fields. These days it only reflected what Optimus let it: calmness, confidence, reassurance. Unmitigated attention, if you were unlucky. He probably could have weaponised it if the thought had taken him—but he hadn’t, and likely wouldn’t, because he was Optimus Prime.

Ratchet exvented heavily, laying himself down on his front and trying not to dwell on how trapped he felt. It wouldn’t take long; it wasn’t a huge procedure. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” he told Optimus, hanging his arms off the edges of the berth to keep them out of the way.

His proximity sensors informed him Optimus was tracing the outline of the gashes with big, deft fingers. He felt nothing at all; the tactile sensors in that region were offline for the procedure. Proximity alone was bad enough, telling him that Optimus’ fingers were only a handspan away from his primary interface array. He fought down an aroused jolt of his EM field, turning it hurriedly into impatience.

“Ready,” Optimus replied, his touches turning brief and clinical. He ignited the arc welder, turning it on the wounds. Ratchet felt nothing bar the infinite presence of the Prime’s field washing over him, pulsing in time with the passes of the torch.

He worked in silence for a while, never one to push his presence where he felt it wasn’t wanted. Ratchet glared down at the berth. 

It wasn’t Optimus that the problem began with. It was—scrap, he could say ‘Megatron’, but while the warlord had a world of problems to answer to in Ratchet’s estimation, this in all faith wasn’t one of them. Ratchet himself was the problem, and Optimus shouldn’t be punished for that. 

He reined in his field, letting it simmer with silent apologies. His scans felt Optimus smile, just slightly.

“Is this the worst of what the Decepticons left you with?” Optimus asked. He had a powerful voice, suited to being raised above battlefields and crowded Senate conferences. Hearing it lowered in a soft murmur made it somehow much more personal, all that intensity directed at the listener alone. “I must admit, I had feared much worse.”

“So had I,” Ratchet grumbled. He’d intended to suffix it with an ‘old friend’—something which was second nature to him—but as he’d formed the sentence, he’d involuntarily reminded himself of the video, the last time he’d heard Optimus addressed in such a manner. The gap at the end of the sentence hung solid in the air; Optimus’ movements paused as he regarded Ratchet with a thoughtful look. 

“I apologise for the fact that it took us so long to retrieve you,” he said softly, finishing off one scar and moving on to the next, businesslike. “Your presence was sorely missed.”

Under different circumstances Ratchet could have lain there and listened to Optimus’ tone of voice all day. It made him feel valuable… valued. “Oh really?” he said dryly, tracing the welding torch’s pass over his plating through his proximity scanners. If he could concentrate on it, rather than Optimus, he might even get through this without trouble. “Be careful—I might get it through my processor that you like having a grouchy old mech like me around to poke holes in your plans.”

Optimus huffed, recognising Ratchet’s self-deprecating humor through long experience. “Of course. Grouchy old mech or not, you fill an important part of our team. Of _my_ team, I should say.” He paused, manipulating the two edges of the torn metal closer. The better the weld, the quicker self-repair would get the armor integrity back up to standard. “Occasionally my strategies benefit from having holes poked in them.”

“I’ll admit, you take it better than some mechs I could name.” Ratchet raised his arms up to the edges on the berth, intending to shift his weight over a little, and froze. Optimus had reached over, covering Ratchet’s near hand with his own for a short moment. There was nothing in his field but careful affection. He smiled down at Ratchet, then drew away, returning to the welding.

Heat rushed in a wave through Ratchet’s circuits. The simplest gesture, lifetime friends to each other. He’d made it work out of sheer stubbornness for the last hundred vorns, and now, thanks to a mad warlord and his home movies, that nameless ‘it’ was crumbling down around him. He shouldn’t have seen those recordings in the first place—they should have been private, something for Megatron to fantasise about over a long-gone choice. 

“Optimus,” he sighed, letting his arms slide off the berth once more. “I—” Could he have kept it up? Yes, indefinitely. Optimus was Prime, he had enough on his list of twisted relationships to deal with without spoiling what had until now been a mutually supportive friendship.

“Yes, Ratchet?” Optimus said after a moment of silence. Ratchet took advantage of the pause to exvent, blowing air just a fraction of a degree warmer than it should have been out of his internals.

“Don’t worry,” he said eventually. Ratchet could keep secrets. One more wouldn’t hurt. “I was just thinking aloud.”

“Hmm.” Optimus seemed to accept it, pastel streels of faith drifting through his field. “Ratchet, if you ever need my help – if there is ever something you want me to hear, come to me. Together, it is possible to deal with far more than we can on our own.”

Oh, that was tempting. Ratchet shifted, turning his helm to look sidelong up at his Prime. The angle helped him avoid noticing the striking azure of his lateral pelvic armor – exotic colouring which accentuated Optimus’ lean waist and slim thighs, two features on him Ratchet found aesthetically pleasing at the worst of times.

There was a weight to the way he stood, intangible and yet inexorable. There was so much resting on those broad red shoulders that Ratchet sometimes thought it would be a mercy to the body if not the spark to extinguish him. Ironically, he couldn’t imagine any crueller fate to inflict on Optimus. 

“I know,” he settled for saying, in the end. “Thank you.”

He knew it was a mistake as soon as he’d said it. The timbre of Optimus’ field changed; it went tight, wrapping around Ratchet’s with the sort of fierce security it only exhibited when Ratchet, or whoever he was protecting at that moment in time, was in danger. “I hated it, old friend,” Optimus murmured, applying the arc welder to the final wound with intent precision. “I haven’t been separated from you for a long time. It felt… unsettling, particularly given the circumstances.” 

Ratchet tried, and failed, to stop a reactive shiver from rippling through his field. He felt it pass to Optimus’, copper tang translated into to abyssal stillness. He felt it when Optimus reacted, surprise echoing across Optimus’ iron control. 

Ratchet cursed inwardly. “Thank you for this,” he said, brushing his field over Optimus’ hands on the arc welder. “I appreciate the help.”

“It is no trouble,” Optimus said, gathering himself. He got back to work, sealing the rest of the scar in silence. 

\--++--++--++--++--

Ratchet had figured it would take some subtle maneuvering to get things between himself and Optimus back to normal. EM fields were a blessing for a highly communicative and social species like theirs, but they made picking up on irregularities in mood and mental state that much easier. Good Cybertronian liars were few and far between—and trying to hide things, that was next to impossible with a skilled field-reader.

Luckily, there was only one really good field-reader in the base. Unluckily, that mech was Optimus. Apparently it came with the territory when you were Prime.

Slag with being subtle. He made excuses, worked things out so that he and Optimus barely had a moment alone for the next five days. He’d come up with a plan to restore the old status quo sooner or later—in the meantime, he just had to keep out of Optimus’ notice.

This was easier said than done. For someone upon whom the fate of two whole worlds rested, Optimus seemed to find enough spare processor space to keep a sharp optic trained on Ratchet whenever they were in the same room. He didn’t seem to be worried, just… watching, waiting, as though he’d seen a flash of something interesting in Ratchet and was waiting for it to show up again.

Ratchet chafed under the attention even more than he would have under normal circumstances. He kept spotting Optimus at the edge of his field of vision, and something—stance, movement, stray word—would call up a memory of those Pit-damned recordings. He’d spent more than one disrupted recharge cycle bouncing between hopeless need and bittersweet anger, and bit by bit, it was wearing him down.

“If there was a Cybertronian Olympics, you’d win gold in Denial by a landslide,” Miko quipped as she and Bulkhead went by, sometime on the fifth day. She’d heard Ratchet irritably snap “Nothing’s wrong!” at June Darby, and in typical Miko fashion couldn’t resist making her opinion known. “Something’s bugging you, dude, and we all know it.”

“If it’s anything I can help with…” Bulkhead began, and Ratchet wasn’t too busy being slagged off at Miko to scowl at the fact that he apparently trusted the little imp’s judgement enough to make the offer on top of it.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine—now will you please get out of my medbay? I have work to do!” He shooed them away, picking up a handy stack of datapads to wave them away. Safe on her perch on Bulkhead’s shoulder, Miko giggled as they skedaddled.

Heavy steps thumped on the concrete floor, and Optimus stepped into the med-bay past them, giving Bulkhead a friendly nod as the ex-Wrecker went past. Ratchet immediately lowered the datapads, vaguely embarrassed to have been caught in such a juvenile gesture. _Scrap_.

He dumped the datapads on the nearest flat surface and turned back to his workstation, collecting the tools that lay scattered across its surface in a futile attempt to look busy. “Can I help you, Optimus?”

“Yes, I believe you can.” Optimus moved forward, his field as always reaching out to tangle with Ratchet’s before he’d come halfway across the threshold. “Ratchet—we need to talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

Ratchet paused, a handful of wire clamps and pliers halfway to their drawer. _Frag me and my big mouth._

“Do we?” he said, as pleasantly as he could manage. “I was sure I’d given you my reports for the week already.” 

Proximity sensors told him Optimus had stopped in the middle of the med-bay, about an arm’s length behind him. “You had. Reports are not my concern, Ratchet.” His field was calm, as usual, and softly affectionate in the way it generally was when they were alone together. Ratchet supposed June’s presence didn’t count; luckily the humans couldn’t read EM fields. In this setting they were as alone as they were likely to get.

“Then what is?” Ratchet glared down at his handful of tools. Trust Optimus to make things complicated. He put on a more neutral expression and turned to face the Prime, steeling himself for a well-meaning interrogation. “I’ve got a lot of work to do here.”

“Currently, you.” Optimus had pitched his voice lower than usual, as he often did when he meant Serious Business: _you’re not getting out of this one so easily, Ratchet._

Ratchet made a face. Miko would have been proud of it.

“Oh, don’t tell me someone’s been telling you tales!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms up in disgust. Just what he needed—comrades sticking their heads in where they didn’t belong. “Alright, out with it: who was it? Arcee? Bulkhead? Who do I need to put on the list for a circulatory system overhaul?”

That got a barely hidden wince from the Prime. Ratchet filed it away for later perusal—good to know he still had some effective threats.

“I am capable of deducing that you’ve not been your usual self lately on my own,” Optimus pointed out, determinedly patient. Of course he was; he’d known Ratchet almost his entire life. The Prime’s field flexed uncomfortably, and he added, honest to the core, “However, Nurse Darby did suggest that I talk to you sooner rather than later.”

Ratchet narrowed his optics. Betrayal! From one of his own, no less. 

Up on the mezzanine, June Darby returned his Decepticon-grade dirty look with a serene grin. “No hard feelings, Ratchet! I’m a nurse and a mother; in those professions you learn to follow your instincts.”

Ratchet hmphed, contrarily turning his back on her and glaring down at the benchtop. “Instincts have nothing to do with me. I don’t believe it is your business, either of you.”

Optimus’ field rippled, a gentle push of recrimination. “It becomes our business when your distress affects all of us. You have quite the temper when stressed, and your primary methods of expressing it tend to involve taking it out on us, whether you mean to or not.”

“You’ve snapped at someone almost every other sentence you’ve spoken today,” June put in, crossing her arms and leaning on the mezzanine railing. “I counted. With patients, that’s almost always a sign they’re not feeling right. With doctors…” she trailed off, giving him a meaningful look. Ratchet had to give her credit—her meaningful looks were almost as good as his. Almost.

“My offer still stands,” Optimus said mildly, his field stroking against Ratchet’s with warm, measured calmness. Ratchet suppressed a reactive shiver. “Whatever your problems, I am willing to help. It is my duty, but beyond that, as your friend I do not wish to see you so bothered.”

“I highly doubt you could help with this, unless you can invent a way to relive the past week.” 

Ratchet regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. 

Optimus’ field flickered—unsure, for once, murky with guilt. It was enough to make Ratchet spin around, open his mouth to take it all back, eat his words. But by that time Optimus had recovered his control, his field bent to his will again, and this time, full of iron purpose. 

“Nurse Darby, please leave us for a while,” he said—it was an order, really, and they all knew it. “You were right; Ratchet and I do need to have this conversation sooner rather than later.”

“I didn’t mean it like that—” Ratchet sent his EM field streaming out towards Optimus, trying to communicate apology and denial at the same time. Optimus had stepped back at his outburst, but as his field touched Ratchet’s he turned to look at him again, and the look in his optics—old, tired, but somehow _intense_ —made Ratchet’s spark turn over, half-guilty, half stupidly attracted. 

June took the mezzanine stairs two at a time, glancing appraisingly up at Ratchet as she reached the lab floor. “It’s okay, Optimus,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “I’ll go help Arcee keep the kids out of your hair for a while. You and Ratchet take all the time you need.”

Optimus nodded his thanks as she left.

“A while—Optimus, I really am working here.” Ratchet brandished his handful of tools, a last-ditch effort to recover his grounding in the rapidly-degenerating situation. He quickly pulled open the drawer, taking the time to sort the different tools into their own compartments rather than just dumping them wherever they’d go as he usually did. “I’m even further behind on basic maintenance than I was, partly because a large proportion of my tools need repairs themselves. The ground bridge needs recalibrated _again_ —” 

Proximity warned him just before Optimus loomed over his shoulder, catching Ratchet’s hands before he could sweep together another handful of odds and ends. “How did you mean it?” he asked, voice soft, his field shivering with notes on apology. “I am sorry you were taken prisoner, and you would be right to blame me for it, as it was my leadership choices which resulted in your capture. I don’t believe you do blame me for it, however—so if not that, then what did you mean?”

Ratchet offlined his optics and vented heavily, his sensornet dialed high enough through nerves that it picked up the wash of heated air playing in the gap between his and Optimus’ frames. His EM field was going mad, short-wave bursts so stuttered and fervent there was no way Optimus could have missed it.

“I don’t blame you for what happened. Pits, if I did, for this and for every time this war has put me in that sort of danger I wouldn’t be here right now. It’s not that, so don’t you dare even think of it!” He let Optimus tug him away from the bench, hoping that if he gave in now he was more likely to be let go later, before he screwed up any worse. “It’s nothing, just something Megatron said.”

“The things Megatron says are rarely nothing. Plainly this too was not, if it has you so stressed.” Optimus let him go, gravely setting himself down on the medberth. That put him nearly of a height with Ratchet, optics just barely angled down to meet Ratchet’s gaze. “I do not intend to force you to share it, if it makes you so uncomfortable—and I trust your judgement, so I will believe that it was of no tactical use. However. I do have a great wealth of experience with the things Megatron says, and if I can help you, I would very much like to.”

 _You wouldn’t be Optimus Prime if you didn’t,_ Ratchet remarked in the privacy of his own mind. Cracks were spiderwebbing through the walls of his control at a rate faster than he could keep up with. He’d already said too much. It was those optics, he swore, earnest and hopeful, they suited Optimus as a mech rather than as a Prime. Stare into them for long enough, and you found yourself spilling your heart’s desires without even realising it. 

Something cracked. The dam crumbled; torrent rushed down the valley.

“He had recordings. Megatron,” Ratchet clarified, his intakes working, “showed me what happened when you’d lost your memories, when you were Orion, on the Nemesis. On-shift, working on the Iacon Database… and off, in your quarters. Yours and his, that is. In excruciating detail.” Ratchet offlined his vocaliser with a sharp click, before it could run away on him again. He’d locked away his visual memories of the videos, but in some ways that was worse than having associative programs bring them up at inopportune times. Imagination filled in the gaps where knowledge failed, and all of a sudden the heat spinning through his frame was more than just nerves.

Optimus laced his digits together, staring pensively down at his linked servos. His expression was unreadable, his field calm and still. Ratchet would have given anything to be privy to what was going on inside his processors.

“He set it up to use against us, Optimus. He knew you wouldn’t be there for long, one way or another, and he made sure he could get some tactical use out of you in more ways than one.”

“I see,” Optimus murmured at last. He shifted, posture straightening, planting his pedes more firmly on the floor. “I… had wondered if that were the case.” His field gave away what his frame did not—active, conflicted, streaked with copper-wire desires. It’d flare out and then abruptly pull back as he tried to assert his authority over it again, only to ultimately fail. 

“I—Oh, Optimus.” Ratchet took an abortive step forward, closer to his friend and Prime. He reached out, but what did he have to offer? Only his love, and that would never measure up to what Megatron had once given.

Optimus looked up, optics sharp, his expression softening as he met Ratchet’s helpless gaze. “And I— I went to him willingly?”

“Pit, you were the instigator half the time,” Ratchet huffed, quicker than he could stop himself. “Orion, that is! Orion did.”

Optimus shook his head. “Orion and I are one and the same, Ratchet. As Orion I simply lacked experience—information, which I as Optimus possess.”

“That’s statutory rape.” By ancient Iaconian laws which not many mechs had ever paid attention to even before the war, technically. These days there were no laws, just military regulations, none of which were exactly very applicable in this situation. Fraternization, perhaps. Ratchet had no idea why he’d brought it up.

Optimus smiled, but it looked brittle, strange grief seeping through his field. “Yes, it is.” 

“He threatened to do worse.” Ratchet was on a roll now, his vocaliser completely out of control. “Said you’d always belong to him, and that for the next Autobots he captured, ‘perhaps a live show would be more effective.’ His words, not mine.”

“Megatron has no more right to me than he does to Cybertron itself.” Which was to say, none at all—without Optimus’ own consent. The problem was, Ratchet knew that deep down that was exactly what Optimus wanted to give. 

“Yes, I know that,” he said eventually, taking a step closer to the medberth. Optimus shifted his pedes apart to make room, setting them down on either side of Ratchet. 

“You do not believe it, though.”

Ratchet tossed his helm, wanting to look away but unable to do so. “I—Primus, Optimus, I know! But it’s him, he’s the one that matches you, the one you’d loved so much—that you still do love, if I’m right. If you look at it from that point of view a part of you will always belong to him. We all know, it, you and I; him too, and you can bet he’s going to make use of it again if he can find another way.” He shrugged, barely noticing the last twinges of discomfort over the electricity crackling through his systems. “I told you a long time ago I’d repair you every time you went and damaged yourself. But there are some things I can’t fix.”

“You have already done more for me than I ever could have hoped for, Ratchet.” Optimus gave him a small smile, sincere and grateful, resting his hands on his thighs. “You are right; I love quickly and passionately, and that has always been my downfall when it comes to Megatron. Neither do I find it easy to let go. I cannot control my feelings, nor what he believes in turn. What I _can_ control is how I act upon them. In that respect, it does not matter which small part of me belongs to him, because that small part does not control me. I can, and will, deny it.”

Ratchet’s field pulsed a sharp negative. “It’s not that. I just—I won’t see you hurt again. I am simply _incapable_ of letting it slide.”

There was a long pause. 

Slowly Optimus leaned forwards, dropping his head, resting his forehelm against Ratchet’s. It was a deeply intimate gesture, done sparingly even among cadre, those considered family. A mech’s primary sensory hardware was contained in the head; symbolically speaking, it directed all of one’s attention, outward perception, towards one’s partner. _You are the center of my world._

“I am deeply honoured,” he said, carefully, intently, “by your devotion to me. Your consideration, your support, your care for me.” His optics, banked considerately, gazed into Ratchet’s. At this distance, there was no hiding anything. Ratchet shuddered, leaning forward into Optimus’ hold.

“Don’t make me say it, Optimus.” He tried, one last time. “Let me go before I really ruin it all.”

“What would you possibly do to achieve that?” Optimus sounded honestly perplexed. Ratchet had been around him long enough to pick out the significance in his word choice—‘would’, rather than ‘could’. Optimus knew there was a lot Ratchet theoretically could do to destroy their relationship. Instead, he’d expressed doubt in Ratchet’s will to carry out such actions. 

“You don’t want to know.” Ratchet wanted to turn away, back to his workbench. There was no going back, not from this weird in-between state. He pulled back, putting a safer distance between them but for his servos, which rested on Optimus’ shoulders and did not want to come off.

“Ratchet, I cannot help you if you refuse to let me understand _how_ I can help.” Optimus tugged him forward again, his field, calm once more, encircling Ratchet’s.

Ratchet smiled wryly. “What makes you think I need help, anyway?”

Optimus gave him a Look—raised brow, set mouth, field washing over Ratchet’s with something like a nonverbal ‘I told you so’ in its wavelength. “You haven’t pushed me away yet.”

Ratchet felt his hydraulics go stiff. 

_Pit. He’s right._

“You have debated and dodged the question, but you have neither physically removed yourself nor told me to stop trying. In comparison to our usual arguments over your wellbeing, you are being positively clingy.”

The odd vibrato tempo in Optimus’ field suddenly made sense. It was worry, on a much more personal scale than Ratchet had ever seen in him before. Not since the final few days before the war, after he’d taken up the mantle of Prime but still had yet to be truly transformed from Orion into Optimus.

 _He knows,_ Ratchet thought. _On a subconscious level, he already knows what I’m going to say. He just hasn’t figured out that he knows, yet._

He wouldn’t say it aloud. He _couldn’t._

Optimus shifted forwards, resting his weight on the very edge of the berth. Hands reached up to trace the edge of Ratchet’s collar plating, and thighs drifted closed until they scraped gently against grey lateral pelvic plating. He moved slowly, as if he was afraid of spooking Ratchet. 

“If you do not want to say it, perhaps you can show me?” His digits drifted over the cover of Ratchet’s digital interface port. Ratchet stood frozen in indecision, his entire processor bent to the task of keeping the wanting heat spinning through his circuits from flaring out into Optimus’ notice. On the one hand, if he said yes he’d know Optimus understood, and he’d know Optimus’ reaction immediately, saving him the worry of waiting. On the other hand... what if he’d misjudged? What if he’d grossly overestimated the breadth of Optimus regard for him? What if, what if?

At last, he nodded jerkily, giving the mental command to retract the panel. Optimus murmured a quiet thankyou, retracting his own panel and slipping his interface cords from their housings. Ratchet caught them midway between their frames, plugging them into his corresponding ports before he had the chance to change his mind. 

He let down his outer firewalls, and felt Optimus right there in his processor, a familiar yet foreign presence floating around the edges of his mind. They’d interfaced at this level before, passing information to each other, conferencing privately, simply sharing companionship in the wake of a particularly hard battle sequence. There were theories that Cybertronians had once shared a species-wide hive mind. Ratchet thought, given the comfort most mechs found in being linked up to a trusted friend, in thinking together rather than on one’s own, that these were probably feasible hypotheses.

In turn, his own automatic protocols sent data down the line, forming an equal projection of his own presence in Optimus’ processor. Their systems synchronised, interface protocols guiding them free of conscious control. Ratchet felt Optimus fall into place, and suddenly thoughts began drifting between them, the linkup complete and active.

In the real world, their bodies embraced, leaning on each other for support as they offlined their optics, concentrating on the internal link.

Ratchet sent Optimus an apprehensive welcome, knowing the conscious intent behind it would mark it out from the crowd, and dropped the firewalls on his emotional libraries before he changed his mind.

Through his own processor, he felt nothing. The emotions were normal; he had had a lot of practice at failing to deal with them over the years. Through Optimus’, he felt an echo of the Prime’s shock as he was engulfed in a tide of black rage, lighter despair, guilt and edgy terror and spark-deep exhaustion. That burned quick, running out before Optimus could put together the effort to react and deal with it. On its heels came the fresher emotions, conflicted awareness of the strong frame holding his own up, self-denial forever out of his reach. Admiration, affection, worry. Love.

 _//That’s it,//_ he sent, waiting for the reaction, spark whirling in agitated limbo. He sent the data for that for good measure, feeling his mouth smile as Optimus’ field swirled, tasting of sweet empathy. _//I love you and I want you to be happy. That’s all.//_

 _//That’s all?//_ Optimus echoed back at him, tagging the thought with half a dozen links. Ratchet followed them—and was swamped by images, sights and scenes he knew well, but from a completely different perspective. 

Ratchet’s body, offline and heading towards stasis lock, bleeding green energon from a catastrophic wound in his side, lying limp in the forsaken dirt of a Decepticon mine. Ratchet, alive and mangled, limping across a battlefield, one-armed and carrying the missing one like a sparkling in the crook of his more functional elbow. Ratchet, elbow-deep in someone’s chassis, streaked with oil and blue energon to the tips of his crest, swearing furiously as spark light reflected off his plating. Ratchet, covered in healing scraplet burns, holding conference with Jack and Raf as the screen behind him flickered between the standard ops monitors and a tap-dancing cartoon monkey.

// _That is_ not _all_ ,// Optimus overruled, data flow inundating Ratchet with an entirely new flood of vibrant emotion: respect, regard, fierce love. His presence flickered in and out of the surge, greeting Ratchet with open mind and code, accepting not just the love but the anger and fear as well, all of Ratchet’s passions. _//The time stamps on these go back almost as far as the war itself. How long have you been keeping this to yourself?//_

Ratchet let his upper mind go blank, a definitive mental shrug. _//A long time. I tried not to think about it.//_

 _//Why?//_ He felt Optimus’ confusion clearly. _//I can’t imagine trying to ignore such a love for so long.//_ There was something behind his presence, deep and powerful, stretching phantom awareness through the emotional data surging through their link. It was the Matrix, Ratchet was fairly sure… an odd thing to feel, largely dormant during interfaces but for when Optimus was experiencing powerful emotion, either his or someone else’s. The touch of it was invigorating, sending packets of pure base urge to do something, anything to act upon it, straight to Ratchet’s most base programs. 

_//You are my friend,//_ Ratchet replied, shifting forward in mind and body, feeling the press against Optimus’ plating, against his awareness. The urge to touch, to experience the whole of him was unbearable. _//I am your friend. And I was happy to be your friend, to support you that way. I didn’t need anything else, so I didn’t want to ruin it. Still don’t.//_

Slowly, carefully, Optimus reciprocated. Heat or the illusion of it flashed through the hardline, making Ratchet’s thoughts stutter. _//You are my friend, Ratchet, as I am yours, but that is not all we can be. You mean just as much to me as I do to you, and I will be whatever you need me to be, whether that is as a friend, a confidant, a lover, or something else. Love takes many forms—do not forget that.//_

“I don’t intend to,” Ratchet gasped aloud. He gathered himself, and mentally shook, code snapping and protocols dropping away. _//What exactly am I to you? What can I do to show you?//_

Lips pressed against his, gentle and cool. His optics onlined so fast they crackled, gazing into Optimus’ even as he returned the kiss, helm tilting to accommodate the curve of Optimus’ face, chassis pressing up against the Prime’s.

 _//I will leave that to your discretion,//_ came the answer, as strong arms wrapped around his waist.

 _Right then._ Ratchet fought for control of the data flow, building new pathways in code through his own interface protocols. Deliberately letting down the next set of firewalls, he gave Optimus access to his tactile centres, plucking a memory from his archives and setting it running as the Prime took the bait. _//Tell me to stop.//_

He felt Optimus’ frame arch and press against him, letting out a surprised moan. Phantom sensation spread across the hardline, Ratchet keenly aware of it as the illusion of writhing frames bearing down on them, clever digits plucking at cables and stroking charge through sensor nodes overtook Optimus’ own tactile centres. They both shuddered, plating flaring out on reflex; Optimus twined his legs around Ratchet’s, while Ratchet in turn tightened his grip on Optimus’ broad shoulders.

“That’s one trick I haven’t encountered before,” Optimus said, prodding his own memories through the link. “I will remember that.” He pushed a silent question against Ratchet’s awareness: _//are you sure?//_

Ratchet responded with one of his more delicious memories, diving straight into the offered access to Optimus’ tactile systems. Whatever Optimus decided to take his revenge with, he’d deserve it twice over.

Although, perhaps, it would be difficult to deserve _this._ Ratchet curled against Optimus and failed to stop himself from voicing a real scream as a wave of blinding pleasure rushed straight from his valve to his spark, laced with a faint burning sensation he distantly recognised as pain. Not any sort of pain he’d ever experienced; it amplified the pleasure rather than cancelling it out. 

“So whenever I call you a masochist,” he managed as he recovered, neural net tingling as Optimus brushed little kisses over his face and chevron, “I’m actually right? Primus.”

“You are,” Optimus agreed mildly, and sent another pulse of intense memory-pleasure through the hardline. 

Overload took them by surprise, zapping through Ratchet’s circuits first and bouncing through the connection into Optimus, shocking them out of the interface and making them arch and grind against one another, vision white with static. Ratchet felt his legs buckle, his medic-heavy frame dragging them both down onto the medbay floor with a thunderous crash.

He lay still for a moment, shutting his optics off and on again until his vision cleared of stray flickers of electricity. He’d fallen on his side, with arms tightly locked around Optimus’ shoulders, one of the Prime’s legs trapped under his thighs. His lines tingled, helm to pede awash with the charge burning itself away. His cooling fans shrilled, greedily sucking in cool air to bleed the heat out of his overstressed systems. Optimus wasn’t much better, messily wrapped around Ratchet, his field potent, incandescent with blissful satisfaction.

“Are you alright?” Optimus murmured, servos stroking over Ratchet’s side and down onto his abdomen, digits tracing the sensitised edges of his plates. “That was… what you wanted?”

Ratchet flapped a distracted servo. “I’m fine. More than. Actually, that was… that’s something I never saw in those Pit-damned recordings.” He huffed a surprised laugh, sweeping his thumb over the exposed connector ports on the Prime’s neck. Optimus hummed a bass note of content pleasure, transmitting the tactile data—feather-light touches, softly enticing—over the hardline. “No wonder, all things considered.”

Optimus purred an agreement, rolling over onto his back and pulling Ratchet onto his chest. The deep thrum of his engine vibrated through Ratchet’s plating, tactile sensors picking it up and running it through his still-active interface protocols straight to his primary array. “Did it help?”

“It did, up until you started asking questions,” Ratchet groused, flattening his palms against Optimus’ windscreen and making little sweeping circles across the glass. “You’ll make me start thinking, and then I’ll come to my senses and run.”

“Hmm.” Optimus gave him an appraising look, as serious as any Ratchet had ever seen from him. Gentle curiosity, tinged with something distantly sharp, rolled down the hardline. “Why would you run?” 

Ratchet lifted his head and glared, sudden temper flaring. Optimus’ presence in the link did not retreat, and quite suddenly he drew his knees up, lifting his legs and hooking them around Ratchet’s, locking them together. Ratchet pushed himself up onto his forearms and tried to draw back, but only succeeded in grinding his hips against Optimus’. Quick pleasure drifted through his neural net; his spike tried to pressurise behind its cover.

 _//Because I’m a cranky old mech who hasn’t learned to change with the world,//_ he thought viciously, field and hardline clearly advertising his anger. Optimus engulfed him with silent reassurance, field wrapping comfortingly around their frames, and Ratchet belatedly realised just how much of that anger had been directed inwards, at himself. _//Because I have a change here, for good or for bad; I don’t know how to let it happen. And I don’t know if you just let me frag you because you thought I needed it, and that scares me worse than the Pit.//_

Optimus flickered a quick denial, shaking his helm. _//That would have helped neither of us. I wanted you, I promise you that.//_ He took hold of Ratchet’s servo, pressing it to his chestplates just above the main central seam. _//I meant what I said—I will be whatever you need me to be, not just because you need me to be it, but because I_ want _to be.//_

“As to the question of desire…” he added aloud, and the heat of anger spun whiplash-quick into sudden arousal, dispersing through Ratchet’s frame as Optimus slid their hands down his chassis, along the little interlocking abdominal plates which gave him unusual flexibility in battle, past them to his pelvic plating—

The little metallic noise of an interface panel withdrawing rang obscenely loud in the quiet medbay. Optimus watched Ratchet’s face intently, optics blazing as he guided their servos further down, between their legs, brushing tentatively against the wet and ready entrance of his valve.

Ratchet started violently as his fingertips came into contact with the heated metal, and came away liberally smeared in lubricant. His fans roared into high gear, his spike thumping against its cover. _//Optimus?//_ he asked, his entire frame thrumming with profane desire.

“I seem to remember something about you preferring your spike,” the Prime murmured into his neck, gusting exvents washing hot over their frames. He pressed their digits against himself again, and this time rocked his hips up into the contact. Ratchet’s fingertips pressed inside just past the entrance calipers. 

Ratchet shuddered as the flexible mechanisms tightened and fluttered around his sensor-heavy medic’s digits. “Yes,” he rasped, his array panel snapping back, his spike extending, straight into Optimus’ servo. “You want me inside you?” 

Optimus’ field convulsed in involuntary desire. Wordlessly the Prime stroked Ratchet’s spike from head to base, shuttering his optics as their hands guided it to the entrance of his valve. Ratchet braced himself.

He pushed in slowly, little thrusts that slicked the tip of his spike with Optimus’ lubricant but did little more than tease them both with the fleeting press of sensation. _Primus,_ Optimus was tight, his valve mechanisms stiff with millennia of disuse. Ratchet’s spike was not particularly big, not for his frame type, and Optimus was several size classes larger, he shouldn’t be _this_ tight— Slowly, gradually, that was the best policy.

Optimus groaned and tried to push his hips up to meet Ratchet’s, the tiny mobile plates around his shuttered optics shifting expressions in time with the stuttered clench and opening stretch of the first rings of calipers in his valve. Ratchet stared down at him, unable to look away as he deepened the penetration, savouring the resistance at the peak of each movement.

There were no words. He had a Prime underneath him, his oldest friend, beautiful and noble even with his legs spread and lubricant dripping base arousal from his valve. 

Ratchet held himself as clear of Optimus as was possible, resting his weight on his knees and one forearm braced against the concrete floor just beneath Optimus’ shoulder. His other hand gripped Optimus’ hip, pinning the Prime in place with a medic’s weight. _I’m just as bad as Megatron,_ he thought, deep layers of his mind spinning in uncertainty.

“How can you want this?” 

It took him a nanoklik or two to realise he’d given voice to the question. Optimus’ optics cracked open, narrow slits blazing with the intensity of the charge piggybacking on his electrical circuits. 

He gave Ratchet an odd look, more than a little confused, and very deliberately flexed his valve around the—very sensitive!—head of Ratchet’s spike. The tactile data translated through his interface protocols as a rush of wet pleasure; Ratchet’s own optics narrowed, their light reflecting off Optimus’ plating.

“Because I want you, Ratchet,” Optimus murmured, voice dropping to a near infrasonic rumble. “I want to give myself to you. However you want me.”

Ratchet _wanted_ him alright, so much so that the protocols which dealt with decorum, respect, social status, were rerouting priorities at a furious rate, like sandbags packed around a river in flood. They were losing ground on all fronts to basic interfacing routines which screamed in glyphs carved ten miles high into the substrates of his moral core to give in, to make open the willing frame in front of him and lose himself in the boiling rush of offered pleasure. 

And it was offered, freely and naturally. Optimus sent his desire rolling down the hardline alongside reassurance— _//Yes, I want this.//_ He smiled, hooking his legs over Ratchet’s thighs as tight as their awkward position, Ratchet only just pushing inside him, would allow. _//Please, take it. Take_ me.//

 _//You’re Prime,//_ Ratchet thought, shuddering with the effort of holding himself back. _I shouldn’t—I’m not appropriate, I’m not ranked enough, not even a warrior—//_

A soft vocalisation, a choked sob running through their shared threads. _I am a Prime who kills his own people,//_ Optimus sent back, hands reaching up, caressing the cheek guards of Ratchet’s helm. Charge crawled visibly over his plating, in tiny fingers of lightning licking their way across his broad chest, leaping across the gap to Ratchet in split-second flares. How could he be so aroused, so quickly? _//Neither of us is what we should be—Ratchet,_ please. _I want to share this with you regardless.//_

Ratchet’s engine roared as his self-control gave out, just for a split second. His hips surged, his spike pressing deeper into Optimus. He felt the second, third, fourth caliper rings give way, forced to slide open too quickly. It would have registered on the knife-edge between pleasure and dull pain for Optimus, even so plainly ready as he was. The Prime didn’t disappoint; on cue it came rushing through their connection, the burning sensation of being stretched, filled, too much, too fast. 

The fierce pleasure which spilled through on its heels was a surprise. Optimus _liked_ it. 

It helped bring Ratchet back to himself. He brought himself up short, the fifth ring just beginning to open up around the tip of him, and offlined his optics, venting hard against the mixed sensations, the tight wet heat around him and the phantom stretch he could feel though Optimus’ sensornet, inside them both. He made an experimental roll of his hips; Optimus’ backstruts arched, his field pulsed violently around Ratchet, painted in vivid strokes of arousal and tendrils of crawling need.

 _“Yeeess,”_ the Prime hummed, tilting his helm up and carefully brushing his mouth over Ratchet’s chevron. Ratchet snapped his attention back from the rippling valve constricting his spike, and before he’d thought about it even once he’d dragged Optimus’ helm down to kiss him, hard and fierce and somehow sweet, pouring everything he’d ever felt for him into the action. The difference in their height was mainly in Optimus’ long, long legs. Ratchet could reach him just fine.

 _//I know._ // Optimus opened his mouth and their glossae met, the slick slide a counterpoint to Optimus’ connectors in Ratchet’s ports, Ratchet’s spike in the Prime’s valve. _//I understand, now.//_

He slid his servos down Ratchet’s frame, planting them on Ratchet’s hips and gently pressing downwards. The message was clear— _in, Ratchet. In all the way._

But Ratchet would not be Ratchet without a streak of contrariness. 

He broke the kiss, quickly pressing his forehelm against Optimus’ crest to crest, before he drew away, pulling out of Optimus completely and earning himself a displeased flutter of fields. Pushing himself up further, he crouched between Optimus’ spread thighs, dragging rough servos along the heated plates, digits delving into the transformation seams. 

“You’re procrastinating,” Optimus groaned, reaching out and trying to pull one of Ratchet’s hands back towards his valve. “Please, I _need—_ ”

“You need what I say you need,” Ratchet replied before he knew he’d spoken aloud, tugging his hand free and snatching hold of both Optimus’ wrists. He leaned up, pinning them to the floor above Optimus’ helm. “Keep those there,” he ordered, his field flaring doctor’s authority.

The way the Prime’s optics went wide, well, that was going to be an image capture to keep, one way or the other. 

At the very, very least, Megatron’s videos hadn’t gone to complete waste. Ratchet cheated and opened Optimus’ lateral hardline port cover with emergency medical codes, popping his own and drawing out his jacks with one hand, skilfully pressing them into Optimus’ ports. He pushed Optimus’ thighs wider, spreading him obscenely, then slid his own legs underneath, kneeling up and over his lower chassis. The position forced Optimus’ aft up off the ground, curving his frame enticingly forward. Ratchet calculated for a moment, then tugged one of his legs up, hooking the knee over his shoulder.

Optimus was a dexter, built for power in precision. His strength was mainly centred in his shoulders and upper torso. While, as a Prime, he was an exceptional example of the frame type, Ratchet knew through bitter experience that if one could get him down on the ground, there were certain tricks which could be used to keep him there with little effort. With aft and legs unbraced against ground, he had no lower-body leverage except that which Ratchet’s own sturdy frame gave him. With his arms pinned above his head, there was very little else he could do except wriggle.

And yet, his field was incandescent with quick arousal, his expression as he looked up at Ratchet somewhere between wonder and bare, impatient need.

Apparently he had a latent authority kink. Ironic, that.

Ratchet cycled a heavy exvent, arranged himself so that the tip of his spike pressed heavy against Optimus’ entrance, and looked his Prime in the optics. Optimus gazed back, optics overbright and wide with anticipation.

“Please,” he gasped, deep voice dropping to a near-subsonic rumble.

Ratchet leaned further forward, and thrust deep. 

Optimus bucked against Ratchet and roared, vocaliser shutting off halfway through in a cascade of static. His valve pulsed, walls flexing and calipers trying to close, charge nodes sparking against the trigger nodes on Ratchet’s spike. Ratchet gasped, fans creaking as they tried to open wider still, shuttering his optics against the intense stream of data from his spike. Pressure wrapped around the sensor-laden plating as Optimus’ valve tried to cycle closed around the obstruction, several hundred short circuits completed by the contact of charge nodes against trigger nodes. 

He gave his hips a short roll, his spike housing grinding against the sensor-rich valve entrance, and _felt_ the phantom through the hardline, his own valve pulsing as it reacted to the shared data. 

Ratchet pulled back slowly, keenly conscious of the low moan the movement dragged from Optimus’ vocaliser. The Prime writhed, arms still pinned back by nothing more than words. Ratchet stopped with only the head of his spike still inside, sending the conflicting data, the cool air against his spike compared with the flexing heat gripping the tip, down the hardline. Optimus gasped out a garbled plea to keep moving, keep going, what might have been a startled oath as Ratchet obliged him.

He gradually sped up the pace, the slow stuttering slide of the first few thrusts giving way to quick, powerful strokes, their interface arrays lighting up with released charge at the peak of each movement. The sharp clang of their plating overlaid the roar of their fans with a strident rhythm. Optimus arched up into each thrust as best he could, his leg slipping down Ratchet’s shoulder as the pace turned erratic, Ratchet’s fingers clenching little dents in his blue pelvic plating.

And the sounds, the noises he made—they made together, Ratchet spilling gasped exclamations as his thrusts turned brutal, scraping across the sensor-rich valve walls and wringing a litany of exultant cries from Optimus. Across the hardline came glyph packets so rough with overcharge glitches they were barely legible, visual affirmation of the want colouring Optimus’ rich deep voice.

Overload snuck up on Ratchet, tipping him from a plateaued equilibrium somewhere above the electric heat straight into white-hot bliss. He locked up, his array grinding into Optimus’, his awareness drawing back to his hands on Optimus’ hips, his spike spilling his transfluid into Optimus’ valve. He felt the hot liquid flood as Optimus did, valve sensors scrambling as they registered a presence that wasn’t there. Distantly he heard himself groan, voice cracking as the surge hit his vocaliser, whiting out his optics and HUD.

He came back slowly, overstressed systems restarting in fits and spurts. His fans were running at full capacity, but he couldn’t hear them; his audial systems had gone down hard and hadn’t rebooted yet. He onlined his optics, and the first thing he saw was Optimus’ face turned up underneath him, optics wide and fixed on him, lips spelling desperate words he couldn’t hear yet—

“—please, Ratchet—ahhn—move! I need—”

Oh. 

Ratchet moved on automatic, easing himself up and sliding smoothly out, then in. He could feel the difference in consistency of his transfluid, thicker and less willing to slide than Optimus’ lubricant, stray charge zapping through the metallic substance. Optimus’ valve reacted perfectly around him, dragging his overheated circuits back to ready arousal exhaustingly quickly. Underneath him, Optimus writhed, tension cords working underneath his plating, his long legs spread wide around Ratchet’s frame. Ratchet took his erect spike in hand, stroking it in tempo as their bodies rocked together.

The Prime finally overloaded with a low sobbing groan, shared ecstasy rushing through the hardline and pushing Ratchet over the edge of a third surprise climax. They blanked out together and he felt Optimus’ presence in his mind disappear a fraction of a nanoklik before he himself collapsed over Optimus’ rigid frame, systems cascading offline.

Rebooting took a while—not that that was such a surprise, Ratchet snarked at himself when his higher thought protocols came back online. 

He ached, in a surprising tally of places. His knees, his wrists, his backstruts, tension cables all over his frame, his hips and spike (although that one was a good ache, one he wouldn’t mind keeping!) his processor, a large proportion of his circuits. Orange notifications helpfully informed him the surge of the third overload had blown a full two thirds of the capacitors in his interface array.

He was still lying on Optimus’ chassis, their engine vibrations thrumming through his frame, his spike still nestled in the wet heat of the Prime’s valve. Obscene as it might be, he still couldn’t bring himself to move.

Large hands came down on his shoulders, a sated, content field shivering with the last aftershocks of overload laying over his like a blanket. “Are you all right?” Optimus asked, digits slipping underneath armor plates to stroke the still-healing joints. 

“Again, I’m fine,” Ratchet said dryly. Out of idle curiosity he replayed the system report histories the reboot had generated, and winced at the decibel level his audials had recorded. “Or maybe not; it depends on how long it takes to explain this to the humans.” They were still hardlined, the slack in the cords slowly spooling back into their housings. He prodded the file through to Optimus, too content to make a big deal out of it.

“Impressive,” the Prime murmured. “However, by a happy coincidence, Arcee has taken them up to the rooftop. It appears there is to be a meteor shower shortly after sunset. Raf intends to set up a telescope.”

Ratchet hummed thoughtfully. “You don’t suppose anyone’s making planetfall, do you?”

“I have not received any indication that this is the case, no.” Optimus exvented, blowing a rush of superheated air from his internals. It condensed as it hit the relatively cold air in the medbay, dispersing as it drifted away from their cooling frames. “Do you wish to join them?”

“Maybe later,” Ratchet groaned. He hunched his hips and eased his spike out of Optimus, optics narrowing as a gush of fluid, mixed lubricant and transfluid, slipped out after it. The outer calipers twitched, released from their stretched open position, and began to slide tight again. 

“Yes, it seems as though we have a cleanup to do.” Optimus sat up with ease— _not fair,_ Ratchet grumbled internally. Optimus sent light amusement down the hardline, then reached out and disconnected his cords from Ratchet’s primary ports. Ratchet did the same with his own cords, manually tucking Optimus’ lateral port cover back into place.

“Cleaning cloths are in the red bucket up there,” Ratchet said, jabbing his thumb up at the tool-strewn bench. There were transfluid spatters all over his abdominal plating, he realised, dripping into gaps and seeping behind his grill. That was going to be the Pit to get out. “It’s the washracks for us, before we do anything else.”

Optimus, on his pedes already, collected the cleanest of Ratchet’s pre-soaked towels and turned to face him, a wry expression on his face. He was in an even worse state, with transfluid painted over most of his lower chassis and fluids dripping down hips and inner thighs. Despite it, he still looked poised and confident. 

_Although that’s not quite true, is it, Ratchet?_ He clambered to his feet, ignoring the way his knee joints protested, and tugged the towel from Optimus’ hand, swiping it across the transfluid mess. 

“Thank you,” Optimus said quietly, his field sliding warmly against Ratchet. “I am lucky to have you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Ratchet said shortly, pushing back with affection. “Just, hm, keep going the way you are. That’s all I ask of you.”

Optimus was still for a long moment, watching thoughtfully as Ratchet mopped up the worst of the fluid dribbles from his legs. “I intend to,” he said, nodding once as though he’d come to some internal decision. “In return, Ratchet – do not try to change too hard.”

Ratchet barked a pleased laugh. “You won’t have to ask me twice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUUGH. Angst is not my forte, not in the least. I specialise in action and reaction, physical things like fights and conversations and apparently sex scenes… so getting out a good feels-heavy angsty piece is painful as anything. That said, once it’s done, it makes me feel accomplished in a way the easier stuff can’t match. 
> 
> This is the first multi-chaptered fic I’ve ever actually finished. That can only be a good thing, right? Also, sub!Optimus ought to be a kink in its own right XD Hope no-one minds, but it seemed to fit the Optimus living in my head. The Ratchet who lives in the brain cell next door rather enjoys reaping the benefits of this [and he is one randy old mech]. Free porn in my mind’s eye, all day every day!
> 
> Today’s inappropriate playlist contained: ‘Moscow’ – Genghis Khan; ‘Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)’ – Shakira; ‘Gee’ – Girls Generation. Slightly more appropriately, the main theme for Fall of Cybertron, and again, the Optimus Prime theme from the movies. Those last two are my favourite things to listen to right now, srsly. <3


End file.
